


this can be your tree-home

by d3us3xmachina



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, attack on titan - Freeform, childhood crushinnnn, gay people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:49:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d3us3xmachina/pseuds/d3us3xmachina
Summary: very UNFINISHED
Relationships: Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss/Ymir
Kudos: 1





	this can be your tree-home

I took a tentative step toward the seemingly abandoned treehouse that stood just a stone's throw away from where I cowered. It's boarded windows and rotting wood created an eerie aura that no one in their right mind would ever want to get _closer_ to. But there I was, crushing the dead leaves around its barely-holding-on stilts, as I placed a shaking hand on the ladder that would, no doubt, send me falling 10 feet to the hard-packed earth should I attempt to scale it. But, being ten years old at the time, I might as well have been risking a fall to my death. 

"Hello?" I called out and cringed at the sound of my voice echoing in the empty woods around me. 

_Idiot._ I cursed myself silently in my head. _Of course, there's no one here. This place doesn't look like it's seen civility in at least a million years!_ Maybe five years, actually. But that's no different than a million in a child's mind, yes? 

God, I was a dumb kid. 

Dumb enough to _still_ not understand the concept of time well enough at ten years old to differentiate between five and a _million_ years. Dumb enough to think I could hide the grass stains on the knees of my jeans from my mother by stretching my shirt over them and not planning for how I was going to walk or explain why my shirt was now too big for me. Dumb enough for dumb kid antics, but also dumb enough to lose the only person who dared be human with me. Who dared give it to me straight. Dared love me in the way children love their best friend forever, but also in the way that gave us confusing butterflies, which we mistook for stomaches and too much candy before dinnertime when we'd depart at dark.

It's still heavy on me, the loss. After 15 years it still feels like a nightmare where I keep waking up inside of it, relieved that it's over, only to realize it never stopped. Even worse is the understanding that it never will. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ran my palm over the jagged spikes in the wood gently, careful to avoid any splinters, and contemplated whether I was brave enough to ascend further into my discovery. Deciding that I wasn't, and not wanting to be late for dinner with my grandparents who I _hated,_ with their wrinkled faces and hands that pinched cheeks and straightened dresses and asked me questions like, _"Are you having fun at your new school?"_ as if any kid ever had fun at school, I turned around and began my trudge out of the woods, splashing in every puddle I came across and pretending I was a fairy living off of the berries that stained my hands as I picked them from their bushes and wiped their juices on the grass. 

Just as I saw the familiar dirt trail that had my personal hell at the other end of it, I heard a rustle in the bushes next to me and felt a pebble hit the back of my ankle. Now, I may have had a mother who valued my looks over my life, but she taught me of the dangers in these woods in an attempt to keep me out of them, so I understood that there was most likely a scary old man hiding in the bushes trying to get my attention. I also understood that I had to _run._ So I did.

I took off down the trail at lightning speeds, never stopping to look back, until I felt my knees hit the dirt 50 feet from the clearing and an unfamiliar weight on my chest as I tumbled onto my back. It felt too light to be an old man, but even if it was, I was more afraid of what my _mother_ would do when she found out I had dirtied my white dress right before she put me on display as the poster granddaughter for our family. I tried to scream, never wanting to see my father's face more than in that moment, but found it impossible as a hand was clamped tightly over my mouth. A small one, only slightly bigger than my own. I looked up to see the freckled face of a girl who couldn't have been much older than me, her hair dark and shoulder-length, and blowing slightly in the breeze. 

Her eyes were urgent, but I sensed no danger behind them. She whipped her head around like she was looking for something, then locked eyes with me as I tried to speak through her appendage.

"If I take my hand off, promise me you won't scream. Please." Her voice was deeper than mine, but there was no doubt she fell into my age group. I nodded my head, fully prepared to scream bloody murder, but decided against it when she smiled softly and removed her hand away from my mouth. 

"Could you, um..." I stammered, unsure of how to ask her to get off of me so I could make my dash for freedom. Luckily, she read my mind and blushed before quickly standing up and extending her arm out to me. 

"Yeah! Of course, sorry about that." She scratched the back of her neck and looked off to the side, still waiting for me to grab her hand.

I hesitated slightly, but eventually grabbed on as she helped me to my feet. Reluctantly, I looked down at my dress and frowned at the dirt staining the cloth, knowing all too well the disasters that awaited me once I got back to the house. 

She noticed my face and her own flushed even deeper.

"Sorry about that, too." She winced and actually looked like she meant it. 

I shook my head, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes as I imagined my mother's voice echoing throughout the halls of our residence, stinging my ears, and scolding me until I went deaf.

But my dread was soon replaced by anger. 

Here I was, _already_ having to sit through dinner with my grandparents and their judgemental eyes, and now I was covered in mud from some crazy person in the bushes who _assaulted_ me then tried to apologize! _Apologize!_

I snapped my head up to meet her guilty eyes with my icy ones. Stabbing a finger into her chest, and keeping the coldest glare I could work up fixated on her, just as I'd seen my mother do with my father, I raised my voice, just as my mother had done with _me,_ and unleashed all of my pent up rages. 

"You're sorry? Yeah, you _will_ be once I tell my father about this! Unless, of course, you have six-thousand dollars hiding in that dirty coat to buy me a new dress and _therapy_ for what you just did to me! You have _no idea_ who I am!" I laced each word with venom, both shocking and disgusting myself with how much I sounded like Her, and how I weaponized my name, just like I promised myself I never would. 

My whole body shook with fury from everything that had led up to this point; my parents, the dinner, my _grandparents,_ and I felt the urge to apologize since it wasn't entirely her fault. I needed to learn to manage my emotions better, clearly. 

Just as I sighed deeply and cast my eyes downward, readying my condolences and trying to meet her eyes once more, I felt a sharp pain spread from my jaw all the way across the right side of my face. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back in the dirt again, with my face throbbing and my eyes closed against the streams of green sunlight coming in through the trees.

_She hit me! I knew it, this girl is dangerous and I should've never let my guard down. Now I'm going to die and I can't even fight back. Pathetic, Reiss. Just pathetic._

I silently berated myself and attempted to open my eyes, glancing around at the now hazy forest, before landing on the girl who stood in front of me, arms crossed and sneering. She took a step toward me suddenly, and I felt my body reflexively flinch, thoroughly embarrassing myself before she stepped over me, grabbed the front of my dress, and pulled me to my feet.

Our faces were _too_ close, and while I was dizzy and still recovering from the blow, I could swear she blushed before pushing me back and crossing her arms again.

Her defensive stance. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_"Historia! Historia, dear! Come say 'hi' to Grandfather and Grandmother!"_

I was eight years old when I learned about the kind of armor that isn't helmets and chainmail and heavy enough to sink a small life raft. The kind that's invisible to everyone but those who wear it. The kind that comes out only when your emotional barricade is threatened by an outside force. An enemy force. 

_"Coming, Mother!"_ My shrill voice echoed from my pink bedroom on the second floor as I pinned the last of the sparkly red bows she had picked out for me in my hair. She had me in a matching red dress with a big, obnoxious bow on the back and I hated it. I absolutely _hated_ it. But I wore it because who likes the nauseating anticipation of waiting for dinner to be over so she can finally hit you without making herself look like a bad mother? I know I don't. So I put up with the scratchy glitter and uncomfortable sequins. It's a small price to pay, really.

I finally made my way down our winding staircase, skipping the last two stairs to jump over them and stumbling to my knees. I giggled at my clumsiness and sat there for a minute before I heard the clicking of heels stop right in front of me as a shadow cloaked me in darkness. My eyes widened and I looked up into the face of my mother with her ice-cold glare and perfect cheekbones. 

She roughly grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process. 

_"What in God's name do you think you're doing?"_

She growled into my ear with such fury that I couldn't tell her apart from the nuns at the Academy for Growing Angels where I ironically felt like I was in hell, and was convinced that she really hated me.

_"I-I'm sorry, I was just coming down as you told me to, then I trip-"_

She cut me off with a swift slap across my cheek and hissed into my ear,

 _"I don't give two shits about what you were doing. What I saw was a spoiled brat dirtying the dress that I spent thousands of dollars on! Wasting all that money on your little 'School for Angels', when you clearly haven't learned one thing about being a lady! You're lucky your father's parents are waiting out there,"_ she jabbed a finger in the direction of the hall that opened into the living room, _"-or I would teach you a lesson you'll never forget!"_

Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes but I knew better than to cry and mess up the makeup she insisted I wear. So I waited until she released me from her vice, and followed her into the living room, my cheek still stinging from her hand. Everyone would think the redness was blush.

 _"There she is!"_ My grandfather's voice echoed in the space around me as he took me in his arms, embracing me and providing brief comfort after the ordeal that had just occurred.

They passed me around from relative to relative as I expertly held back tears and steadied my voice whenever it would shake like the legs of the stray dogs that would stagger onto our front porch after a thunderstorm. The ones I'd always begged to have, but quickly learned to keep my mouth shut after She made me pet one to "teach me" about how dangerous wild animals were, and got four sharp teeth sunk into my arm. She'd apologized and held me as I cried into her shirt, making me feel loved and protected, just as a mother should. Then she made me put the bandages on myself. I still have the scars.

I smiled throughout the whole dinner, nodding politely and laughing when it was appropriate; behaving like the perfect daughter.

The expression I wore shielded me from questions and concern, and most of all, the wrath that She would surely rain down upon me if I let our little "secret" slip.

It was protecting me like the mother I never had, this armor of mine.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey! Are you still there?" The girl waved her hand in front of my face as I stood, unblinking.

When I finally pulled myself out of the flashback that haunted my dreams each night, and every waking day, I remembered where I was and the dull ache in my cheek became more prominent. 


End file.
